Raiganj, Jan. 16: The North Dinajpur district court has issued an injunction to prevent the Kaliaganj College from holding elections to the student union scheduled for tomorrow.

The court passed the order on Friday on a petition filed by the Trinamul Chhatra Parishad which challenged a decision of the college banning the participation of students, who failed in their exams in the poll process, both as voters and candidates.

According to sources, the college published the voters’ list on January 5 and the last date to withdraw nominations was January 11. On January 5, the college also issued a notice stating that those who failed in exams would have their names struck off the voters’ list.

Gour Banga University published results for the Part I and Part II exams on January 10 and 12 and about 40 students in the first and the second years failed. The SFI demanded that the names of the 40 be struck off the voters’ list, though none of them were candidates, said the sources.

A leader of the Kaliaganj unit of the Trinamul Chhatra Parishad, Rajib Saha, said they had repeatedly requested the college authorities to publish the final voters’ list only after the results were published. “The authorities knew when the results would be published and in collusion with the SFI, put up the voters’ list well before the dates. We then decided to approach the court seeking justice.”

The lawyer representing the TMCP, Rohim Kumar Dutta, said the college authorities had acted in an undemocratic manner and the district judge had issued the order of injunction till January 21.

Principal of the college Piyush Das said the decision to disallow failed students from taking part in the elections had been taken by the governing body of the institution. “We had made this clear at the very outset and the TMCP did not have any objections then. However, following the court order, we have kept the elections in abeyance.”

The SFI district secretary, Pranesh Sarkar, said: “Our supporters are also among the students who wouldn’t be able to cast their votes. In the last elections, we had won 24 of the 29 seats by a huge margin and the TMCP, fearing another debacle, went to court and created a complicated situation.”